Snowball, left, currently weighs 1.5 kilograms, compared to a normal hedgehog who weighs about 500 grams. Photo: JEFF MOOREAn albino hedgehog has been put on a special diet after his weight ballooned to three times the size of a normal one.
By Chris Irvine
Published: 7:30AM GMT 11 Dec 2009
Snowball currently weighs 1.5 kilograms, compared to a normal hedgehog who weighs about 500 grams.
He was taken to St Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital in Buckinghamshire by a member of the public after experts were called in to help shed his extra weight.
He has been placed on a diet of low-fat kitten biscuits and are putting him through his paces with running and swimming sessions. He has so far lost 38 grams.
Les Stocker, the founder of St Tiggywinkles, told Sky News: "He was very, very fat. Hedgehogs just eat and eat and eat. If they have got food there, they will eat the lot.
"We may let him hibernate because that will help him lose weight. He’s got enough fat to survive hibernation and that might be the answer."
Snowball, who was taken to the hospital in October, will remain at St Tiggywinkles until the summer, when he will be released into a protected area for other albino headgehogs. Only one in every 10,000 hedgehogs is born with albinism, but the condition makes him particularly vulnerable to predators. The condition means they have no melanin pigment in their skin, eyes and spikes.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/6783030/Fat-albino-hedgehog-put-on-diet.html
See video at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8409188.stm
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